Some footprints of the remarkable Murray and Hofmeyr family on the history of the Dutch Reformed Church Free State and the Reformed Church in Zambia GIDEON VAN DER WATT At the opening of the Andrew Murray Centre for Spirituality, it is indeed appropriate to celebrate the extraordinary contribution of the Murray family. The Louw, Hofmeyr and Neethling families were, however, very much part of this clan. And their inBluence also stretched to the Free State (or Trans Gariep) and (northern-Rhodesia) Zambia. At crucial moments in the history of the Dutch Reformed Church Free State (DRC Free State) and the Reformed Church in Zambia (RCZ), the names of a Murray, a Hofmeyr or a Louw featured prominently. 1. The founding years of the DRC Free State – the young rev Andrew Murray of Bloemfontein 1.1 Murray inducted as minister It was three days before he turned 21, on the 6th of May 1849, that Andrew Murray has been ordained and inducted as minister of the recently founded Bloemfontein congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). At the Sunday morning service his father, rev Andrew Murray snr from Graaff Reinette preached from 2 Corinthians 6:1 and then, by solemnly laying his hands on his kneeling son – as has always been the custom in the DRC – he ordained and inducted him as minister. Andrew’s brother John, who would soon be inducted in the Burgersdorp congregation, was also present. That Sunday afternoon Andrew Murray jnr preached from 1 Corinthians 1:23: “but we preach Christ cruciied…” Christ Jesus, and an intimate, life-changing relationship with Jesus, would be the centre of his ministry, Murray explained in a very serious and lively sermon to the gathered congregation. The Legislative Council of the Orange River Sovereignty would pay his salary – as was also the arrangement in the Cape Colony. The colonial government and the church was clearly not separated. Murray’s immediate congregation in Bloemfontein consisted of the migrant farmers who recently established themselves in the Transgariep in the Modder River area and members of the British garrison under Major Warden who was established in the “village”. But the young minister’s responsibilities would actually cover a much wider area. He would be the only minister to the settlers (Trekkers) in the Orange River Sovereignty, stretching from the Orange (or Gariep) River in the south to the Vaal River in the north. And, for some years he would also be responsible for the whole area beyond the Vaal River, the Transvaal… and also Natal! The Orange River Sovereignty was proclaimed as such by the Cape Governor Harry Smith in 1848. Andries Pretorius, with a strong commando of Transvaal burghers wanted to violently undo this proclamation, but they were defeated at Boomplaats. It has been the beginning of some tense relations between the settlers on both sides of the Vaal. 1.2 Deputations from the Cape In the years immediately after the Great Trek (1836-1838), the Trekkers were relying on the ministry of missionaries like Erasmus Smit, Daniel Lindley, DJ Döhne and elder Sarel Cilliers, etc. In the years immediately after the Great trek, the Cape DRC sporadically and hesitantly sent ministers, but eventually the Presbytery of Graaf Reinette sent ofBicial deputations to the Orange River Sovereignty to minister the Word and sacraments to the new immigrants and to establish congregations. The Birst ofBicial deputation consisted of rev Andrew Murray snr, rev =1 PK Albertyn and elder Pienaar. In March 1848 they ofBicially established the Birst congregation in the Orange River Sovereignty at Rietrivier (today Fauresmith); in the vicinity of the Modder Rivier (some distance from today’s Bloemfontein) they preached and baptised children and near the Vet River (today’s Winburg) they rearranged and oficially established the congregation which had been unofBicially formed during the Trek. On their return journey they also paid a visit to Bloemfontein, but it was only during a second deputation towards the end of 1848 that the congregation of Bloemfontein was ofBicially established (30 November 1848). The second deputation also constituted the congregation at SmithBield. Andrew Murray jnr would be the Birst minister to permanently minister to the Bloemfontein congregation. All the other congregations, including Harrismith which also came into being in 1848, were vacant and he had to serve them all – an impossible task! In December 1850 rev Dirk van Velden was ordained in Winburg and served there for a brief period. Only in April 1855 came some relieve for the young Andrew Murray when his brother in law, rev AA Louw (married to Jemima Murray – they were the parents of the founder of the Masjona (Zimbabwe) Mission AA Louw jnr), became the minister of Fauresmith. In the following years Murray and Louw would be instrumental in establishing several new congregations in the Free State. 1.3 Characteristics of his ministry When Murray became minister in Bloemfontein, he had only recently returned from his studies in the Netherlands. There he and his brother John came under the inBluence of the Dutch réveil, a movement that promoted spiritual enthusiasm; they have been members of the student organisation Sechor Dabar, which promoted a puritan and holy lifestyle, fervent prayer, the longing for the salvation of souls, consciousness of sin and the need of a powerful conversion experience (this organisation was nicknamed the Tea Drinking Club). In Utrecht they also formed their own student mission organisation named Eltheto. His early ministry would therefore be characterised by a strong evangelical emphasis and mission enthusiasm. For instance: only days after his induction, precisely on his 21st birthday, Andrew Murray, his father and brother, paid a visit to the missionaries in the eastern regions near Lesotho, at Merimetzu and Mekuatling. In him the French, German and English missionaries working in the Trans Gariep and Lesotho, would Bind a kindred spirit, one who would, from his ofBicial position as minister of the state church, even try to protect them from the unfortunate attacks by the Boer commando’s. Murray also started to minister to the English and Sesotho speaking population in and around Bloemfontein. In 1856 Andrew Murray was married to Emma Rutherfoord by a Lutheran Minister in the DRC building in Wynberg. Emma’s father was a well-known businessman and philanthropist in Cape Town, a dedicated member of the Anglican Church – typically of Murray’s ecumenical background. They were a very popular couple in the parsonage, opening up their hearts to all classes of people. And often the kind of people they had to minister to, where still very uneducated and in a state of spiritual neglect. Each Sunday Emma would accompany the congregation on the ‘seraphine’ (The seraphine is an early keyed wind instrument, something of a cross between a reed organ and an accordion, being more similar to the former). Andrew Murray’s ministry in Bloemfontein occurred during a tumultuous, but in many ways also a foundational time. He had to lay several foundations, even literally for the Birst church building. When the church building of Bloemfontein was ofBicially opened on 5 June 1852, it was his brother in law, rev Jan Neethling of Price Albert, who just returned with Murray from a visit to the Transvaal and his brother John Murray from Burgersdorp, who took part in the historic celebrations. In 1852 he, together with elder J van Zijl, attended the Cape Synod as the Birst representatives of the new Presbytery of the Transgariep. On his recommendation the =2 missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society working in Lesotho and the eastern parts of the Orange River Sovereignty were ofBicially acknowledged by the Synod as sister organisation to the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1855 Andrew Murray was instrumental in establishing the boys school Grey College with the funds, which Sir George Grey, the then Governor of the Cape Colony made available for the erection of a “seminary” in the Trans Gariep. Murray served as the irst “rector” of this institution, originally of the DRC, but which eventually became the well-known Grey College of today and which later on gave birth to the Grey University College, the predecessor of today’s University of the Free State. (In the footsteps of Grey College, the DRC Synod of the Free State also established, in 1874, the Eunice-ladies Institute, a girls school next to Grey College). At the Synod of 1857, Murray, as representative of the Presbytery of the Trans Gariep, passionately pleaded for a mission awakening in the DRC. Apart from building the Bloemfontein congregation through the ministry of Word and sacraments, catechism, house visits, church discipline and especially maintaining very good relationships – Murray has indeed been a much loved minister – there was also resistance to his evangelical approach. Some very inBluential members, under the leadership of JJ Venter, complained about not feeling at home in the congregation any more. They provided reasons for therefore leaving: the evangelical hymns sung at services, the regular prayer meetings, the tables that are arranged in the form of a cross at the Lords Supper, the lack of proper discipline in allowing participants to the Lords Table, and the evangelical preaching focussing on the need of conversion and holiness instead of predestination and election. When rev Dirk Postma visited Bloemfontein and vicinity in 1859, he assisted these disgruntled members to establish the Birst church belonging to the newly formed denomination, the Gereformeerde Kerke in the then Free State Republic, on the village they named Reddersburg (the name was derived from their joy of being saved from the evangelical inBluence). Murray, typically of his generous spirit, showed no animosity to this group despite his sadness.